


After Effects

by SpuffyCarrie



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 05:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15454029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpuffyCarrie/pseuds/SpuffyCarrie
Summary: What happens once the world has been saved and the one you love is gone? Emotional one shot about Buffy’s thoughts of Spike the first night after they leave the Sunnydale crater.This is unbetaed so all mistakes are my own.I've used some dialogue from S7 Touched.Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.





	After Effects

Sleep wouldn’t come.

For the first time in months, she was sleeping alone in a motel bed, paid with Giles’ credit card. She was supposed to be sharing the twin room with Faith, but Faith was still at the hospital with the badly injured Robin Wood.

Dawn hadn’t seemed to want to share with her, preferring to bunk in another room with the potentials. Injured and exhausted girls filled several other rooms on that floor. Were they even called potentials now? Buffy supposed not. Giles had insisted everyone got a good night’s sleep, as they couldn’t be sure what tomorrow held for them.

Thankful for the peace, she was glad to spend that one night alone. Tomorrow would mean making plans for the future, having to make decisions she wasn’t sure she had the energy for, leaving no time to think or mourn. For one moment she just wanted to remain suspended in time.

She had nothing left, apart from a plastic bag containing the clothes they’d picked up from Walmart in the next town with Giles' credit card, cheap black jeans and a black tee she chose without thinking, plain cotton panties and Spikes lighter. She flicked it a few times, her tear streaked face illuminated in the darkness, but made the decision to tuck it back in her jeans pocket, not wanting to break it, it was the only thing she had left of him, other than her memories.

Uncaring she’d crawled into bed wearing the dirty, dusty clothes she wore as she’d fought the Turok-Han, the clothes she wore when she’d last touched Spike. Pulling the covers up to her neck she tried to sleep, tried to ignore the pain from the burn on her hand and push away the last remnants of adrenalin which still made her aching limbs twinge.

A whisper of air ruffled her hair. It could've been the air conditioning, but she wanted to think he was still here, still on this plane, the stubborn vampire’s essence clinging onto every last scrap of life. That was him, he had the power to cross over the veil of death and touch her because he loved her, she knew he did -  even if he wouldn’t believe she loved him at the end.

"You’re still, here aren't you?" She spoke into the dark, her voice quivering, "You're just playing with me, like you always did. You said you'd leave so many times, but you always came back. You always came back, for me." But there was no tell-tale prickling on the back of her neck and she knew she was clutching at straws.

She listened too hard, the slightest noise like a sharp pain vibrating over her cochlea. A tap dripped in the bathroom and she covered her ears with her hands. 

"No. Don't torture me. I know I deserve your hate, but please, I told you I loved you and you didn’t believe me."

She opened her eyes in the pitch black, her mind creating the shadow of him standing at the end of her bed. "Tell me why you didn't believe me when I told you I loved you, please, Spike!" 

The shadows moved, shifting between grey, matt black and the true dark.

She shifted onto her elbows peering into the void. "You told me I was the one."

Panic filled her gut when there was only silence.

"You made me feel alive, alive! ALIVE! Help me! I know you're here! You have to be here!"

There was a soft knock on the door and she waited a moment for the person to go away. They knocked again, and she recognised Dawns voice.

"Buffy, I know you're awake."

She staggered off the bed, remembering she was still wearing her heeled boots and her blood-soaked clothes, she opened the door to her sister, who was dressed in a white motel robe. Dawn scrubbed at her eyes. "Buffy, you were shouting in your sleep, I was worried about you." Her eyes dropped to the blood on Buffy’s top, now brown and crusty, the wound long healed. Buffy subconsciously covered the stain with her arm.

"Was I? Uh, sorry to wake everyone." She looked at her feet. Why? Why should she still wear these boots when Spikes boots had burned? 

"Can I come in? The door closed behind me and I don't have my key card, I don’t want to wake the other girls."

"Yeah, but I'm really tired, so just go to sleep." She said, heading back to bed, laying down on her side.

"Uh, Buffy? Aren't you going to take off your boots, and your jacket?" Dawn asked, her face illuminated by the light of the unclosed door.

"I'm fine."

Dawn closed the door and padded over to the bed, sitting beside her sister and grasping her ankle before tugging off one boot and then the other.

"Dawn, I told you..." Buffy warned.

"Let me help you, just this once, I swear, I'll never help you again." Dawn said, her voice harsh but with a kind tone. Things had been strained between them since she'd agreed to ask Buffy to leave her own home. "Take off this top and jacket, it's filthy, mom would...she'd..."

"What Dawn? Turn in her grave to see me like this? Well I'm sorry I'm so dirty because I just saved the world! No, HE saved the world and I just watched him do it!"

Buffy yelled, removing her clothes and flinging them at Dawn.

"That's not true! Sure, he was a part of it, but you saved us too! We all helped." 

"He died, Dawn! God, how much does a person have to do to be a hero? Is giving their life not enough? Was Anya's life not enough? the potentials who gave their lives today, were they not heroes too?"

"That's not what I meant at all, and you know it, Buffy!"

"Then what are you saying? That I'm a hero because I gave the order? That they followed me? Trusted me? You weren't there when those girls, those young women with their whole lives ahead of them, lost their lives right in front of me! You didn't see that look of shock as their lives were taken in a split second by something they'd never dreamed existed a few months before!"

"I wanted to be there, you were the one who told me I couldn't!"

Buffy took hold of both her upper arms and shook her. "Christ, Dawn, when are you gonna grow the fuck up? Don't you understand? I couldn't allow you to be there! You would've been like a lamb to the slaughter! Anyway he..." She trailed off, realising what she was doing and letting go of Dawns arms.

Dawn ventured a tentative touch on Buffy's hand. "He?"

She didn't want to get into this, it was the only row she'd had with Spike during those last days before the battle. "He wanted me to get you away from Sunnydale before the end, he was pissed off that the plan with Xander hadn't worked, he said he hadn't spent one hundred and forty-seven days caring for you, just to have you slaughtered at the end. He told me you were in my care and I wasn't doing my job properly. He loved you and he didn't want you hurt! But I overruled him, like I always did and kept you there!"

"Yeah, you always did that, and he always let you." Dawn agreed.

Buffy calmed down slightly, running out of steam. "I know I did, I always thought I was right." She clicked on the lamp and moved over to allow Dawn into the bed, both made themselves comfortable, lying with their arms folded above the coverlet.

"If he was here now I wouldn't. If he was here I'd tell him how much I loved how he cared about you, how much I loved what he did for us. If he was here..." Buffy went silent.

"You'd tell him how much you loved him?" Dawn suggested.

There was no response for a minute as Buffy contemplated her answer. When she didn't reply, Dawn turned on her side and balanced her head on her hand. "Buffy?"

Buffy let out a hiccough which was a mixture between a laugh and a sob. "If he was here, there would be no room in this bed for you. I'd be showing him just how much I love him."

Dawn giggled.

Buffy was quiet but then a laugh popped out of her mouth, unbidden, and another, then she let loose, rolling around to her side, laughing hysterically and slapping her hands on the covers. 

Dawn was alarmed at first but then joined in with Buffy's infectious laughter, the two guffawing like they'd lost the plot. Tears slid down Buffy's face and Dawn watched her face screw up as she began to sob uncontrollably, barely able to breath, drawing her legs up to her chest in the foetal position. "No, no, no! He'll come back, h-he always c-comes back to me." She cried out.

Choking up, Dawn couldn't control her own emotions and began to sob right with her, taking her sister into her arms and pulling her tight. Both carried on like this for some time, crying together over their losses and hugging one another, Dawn also because of her guilt over what had happened when she'd betrayed her sister, crying with relief that her sister had let her this close once more and crying because she’d never really made things up with Spike before he died.

Sometime later they both lay snuggled up together but hugging still.

Dawn pulled a packet of squashed M&M's from the pocket of her robe and they ate a few each. 

They were both silent, lost in their own thoughts.

"Buffy, what are we going to do without him?" Dawn asked eventually, the sugar from the chocolate giving her the courage to ask.

It took a while, and several more mouthfuls of chocolate before Buffy answered. In her mind’s eye he saw Spike crouched on the floor before her in the neighbour’s house, spilling the contents of his heart with his dramatic speech.

_“Hey, look at me. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one, Buffy.”_

"Live. We're going to live, for him."


End file.
